Germanic has given rise to only one Jewish language -- Yiddish. This originated
among the Zarphatic-speaking Jews of Ashkenaz -- they either moved eastward into
German-speaking area or inhabited a Romance-speaking were taken over by a Germanic tribe.
Here is what it
looks like!

Nothing is known about the Jews of Germany between Roman times and Carolingian -- so
Jewish history there begins in 9th century CE. Old High German became the earliest
form of Yiddish, some remnants still known:
feter/
onkel,
mume/
mime/
tante; as well as some elements of Zarphatic:
davenen,
oren.

Ideas of Max Weinreich:

A) Derekh ha-Shas (The Way of the Talmud):
Weinreich says that it rests on four pillars

1. Specificness of the Jews, different from other peoples. Chosen
People, definitive beginning in history, carry the burden of Law and
Commandments.
2. Older Jewish history is prefiguration, a foreshadowing, of
what will happen to us:
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"Ma'asseh avot siman l'vanim."
3. Vertical legitimation: we form a unit of Patriarchs (and Matriarchs?)
until today. Ashkenaz and Sepharad rest on the foundation of the Gaonic
patrimony;
Gaonim rooted in
Gemara, Gemara and Written Law are one.
4. Panchronism: Derekh ha-Shas plays havoc with usual notions of time. It
has a sense of continuity:
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'eyn mukdam umeuhar batorah' (in Torah there is no earlier and later). Some strange
synchronisms: a new temporal relativity: time goes not only forward but backward.
Moses can meet Rabbi Akiva and both can meet Ba'al Shem Tov.
Present-day conditions projected backwards 2000 years, but present-day conditions
and behavioral norms are motivated by reference to the Talmud.

In practical terms, 'derekh ha-shas' is an accumulation of hundreds of years of energy,
a fire that burned so intensely that it melted every substance. Jews took a foreign
element, German, molded it into
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loshn ashkenaz, or
"leshoyneynu", and it became a Jewish element. In 18th century, Rabbi Jacob Emden, in
contrasting Yiddish and German, says: "Yiddish is loshn ashkenaz, German is
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"lashon ashkenaz she-hem mevinim yafe." The Gentile language has become a Jewish language,
the Gentiles had only a historic-genetic relationship to it.
B) 19th century linguists worked with unilinear schemes of linguistic
development; Weinreich developed the idea of
shmeltsshprakh -- Fusion language. Here are some examples:
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nokhn bentshn hot der zeyde gekoyft a seyfer.

bentshn
-- benedicere (Old Italian);
brokhe has
a different meaning than bentshn .
zeyde -- Slavic;
grosfater is
Western Yiddish, not Eastern.
seyfer -- not
bukh or
sidder , or
makhzer ; each
has a different meaning.

In other words, we can only become aware of the proper meaning by comparing semantically
related terms.

Ladino -- La'az, originally a foreign gloss of Hebrew transliteration, based on
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" 'am lo'ez" in Psalms 114:1. Probably from
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"Lleshon 'am zar".
In Italy:
latinar,
in Spain
ladinar, (also in Provence), or
romancar
in France
aromancer.
Major classical work:
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"Me'am Lo'ez" -- 18th century CE. Started by Ya'akov Kulli,
d. 1730, completed by others. An ethico-homiletical work. For a long time, the only literature
of Sephardic families, reading considered a religious duty.
A "Diaspora language", like Yiddish. In North, Amsterdam and London. Ladino is not
the spoken "Judeo-Spanish," Judezmo is. It is written, but so is Judezmo. It is the product
of the word for word translation of Hebrew texts -- Biblical and liturgical -- into a
Spanish that goes back to the 13th century. Earliest documents in Ladino from 1540.
A semi-sacred language transformed into a vernacular: Judezmo. The latter now very
francified because of Alliance (Israelite Universalle) schools. Termed Ladino by
Turkish Jews to cover their Jewish identity. Kol Yisra'el broadcasts in
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Lingua Judio-Espanyol
It looks
like this.
Judezmo in Mediterranean area:

According to Haim Vidal Sephina, "Ladino is to Judezmo, as Israelite is to Jew."
Rashi script, Romanized after Ataturk and in Alliance schools.
Here is an example of
a poem in Ladino.
More information can be found at the
Judeo-Spanish page.

Zarphatic -- once of great importance, now essentially gone. Spoken in the Rhine-Moselle
area, mother tongue of French in Middle Ages, what is now called Old French. Jews of
Normandy spoke a Norman dialect; in Troyes, Champagnois; in Dijon, Burgundian.
Rabbinical decisions given in Old French, sometimes even language of prayer:
Hebrew Gallicized:
agin =
hayim;
religious terms as well:
bonteable =
hasid;
plain =
p'shat.
Jewish names --
Colon =
Yonah;
BenditBarukh;
Vives =
Hayim
Quinet =
Ya'akov (Jaquinet);
Monet =
Shim'on (Simonet)
From 12th century, la'az glosses appeared in French and English Jewry. 6 or more
glossaries of Bible from 13th century tens of thousands of old French words. Rashi alone
had 1300 glosses in Bible, 3500 in Talmud.

Shuadit -- this name for Judeo-Provencal first used in 1803 by
non-Jews in satires and comedies. Oldest texts are glosses in
Ittur by Isaac
ben Abba Mari of Marseilles between 1170-1193. Other commentaries of
13th and 14th centuries give examples of Shuadit and Catalanit. Only
full text preserved are fragments of Esther, 14th century, and translation
of Siddur from the 14th or 15th century. Composed in vernacular for women.

Yevanic -- a parchment MS of Yonah found in Crete, sale date 1263 CE, is
the earliest known document. Closer to ancient Greek than any relic of
early Byzantine literature. It is continued to be spoken and written in
Janina, Larissa, Chalcis, Corfu, Zante.
Under Nazis some Greek Jews used Yevanic to communicate. Today, except
for Ladino speakers, Greek Jews use standard Greek.

Tat -- Tats presumably descend from Iranian military colonies established during Sassanian period, 226-641 CE. Originally a Southwest Iranian dialect. Tati
influenced by NW Iranian and Turkish. Chiefly found in Makhachkala, Derbet, Kuba.
Before 1917 written in Hebrew characters, forced to Romanize in 1929, to
Cyrilize in 1939, One of the 9 official and literary languages of
Daghestan, in 1959 30,000 Jews listed as their mother tongue.